


Meet Me in the Hallway

by Mike_H



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25002415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mike_H/pseuds/Mike_H
Summary: Prompt:Bromance fic about Madara and Mito. Twist: Madara at first despises Mito, being all rude and nasty toward her, while Mito tolerates it, just to realize their mutual love toward Hashirama. It's the catalyst start of their friendship. Hidden twist: Madara is actually dating Tobirama.
Relationships: Uchiha Madara & Uzumaki Mito
Comments: 16
Kudos: 23





	1. A-side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tuliharja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tuliharja/gifts).



> Prompt: _Bromance fic about Madara and Mito. Twist: Madara at first despises Mito, being all rude and nasty toward her, while Mito tolerates it, just to realize their mutual love toward Hashirama. It's the catalyst start of their friendship. Hidden twist: Madara is actually dating Tobirama._

**[NOW & THEN]**

She meets him in the hallway, blood on her suit and storm in her eyes.

Death echoes in each of her shadowed steps. Her face is calm where her eyes are not. Her mouth is a tight line.

She reminds him of herself, two years ago.

Back when he'd watched her with her back to him, the rain pulling her hair straight down to her waist, stark against the dark of her suit like a blood red waterfall.

He remembers the way she stood, her hand upon the casket that held her Boss.

Her Boss who was also her mother.

She should have been grieving. Should have broken. But there was no bow to her head. No curve to her shoulders.

He had watched her, steel-spined beneath the weight of an empire so suddenly thrust upon her, and thought, there is nothing small about Uzumaki Mito.

She had turned around, eyes red-rimmed and swollen, fire burning in their depths.

And she had looked at him, the way she's looking at him now.

Cold. Calculating. A _challenge._

  


* * *

  


**[THEN]**

"I think what we have is an understanding."

He hates the way she says this, the way she says everything like honeyed poison dripping from her tongue. She sits at the dining table, hands folded neatly upon it. Everything about her is elegant and sharp. She looks at him, and he feels his skin crawl.

"I know that you love him."

Madara's fingers curl into fists by his sides. His jaw is clenched, hard. He does not want to say something he might regret.

And Mito says, "I know that you think I'm no good for him."

Her mouth curls into the barest of smiles. "But you must know that I don't care what you think."

  


* * *

  


He hates her.

Hates her with all that he is. Her strength. Her self-assuredness. Her _largeness._

It makes him sick with envy.

  


* * *

  


**[NOW]**

Blood, crusting upon her jacket.

Blood, like her hair, her smile that's breaking across her face, feral and vicious.

_His_ smile, an echo.

  


* * *

  


**[THEN]**

What they are is complicated.

They're not enemies, but they're nowhere close to being friends.

On the surface, they are a show of allyship. Deep down, Madara loathes Mito as much as he is fascinated by her.

She is a quiet explosion, a wraith seeking vengeance. For Family and family, for this laughable quest of peace.

Madara knows, Mito will never find peace. There is no place for it in her heart of fire and stone.

Mito is a force. She is long fingers around a vial of arsenic. She is a thrown dagger, a fired gun. She moves like a ghost through the dark of night, unnoticed. So much strength in her petite frame. So much darkness in her hands, her eyes, her smile as she takes life after life.

Mito is fearless. She moves ever onward. Trail of dead in her wake.

Her back, always to him.

Madara follows, hates himself for it.

  


* * *

  


The thing he hates most is how Hashirama is always himself around her.

Before Mito, all his masks fall away. He is simply _Hashirama_ — the one Madara knew, has always known, should be the only one to know.

They are always together.

He finds them often, in the living room, the gardens, training rooms and meeting rooms and every goddamn where in the Senju headquarters, side by side, in quiet conversation.

Madara hates every laugh Mito draws from Hashirama. Every play of his fingers upon her arm, her face, her hair. Honesty in his eyes.

He hates how Hashirama never seems to need him anymore.

  


* * *

  


Mito is a dangerous thing.

Madara wants to slip inside her skin, learn her mind, know her heart that he's certain has ceased beating.

They shouldn't be doing this, but Mito is stubborn and determined. She is her mother's daughter. Sharp. Bloodthirsty.

Little by little, she takes them apart.

The ones who took her world from her.

Madara is always there, drawn to the promise of battle — to _her_ — like a sailor to a siren's call.

He does not know why he's doing this. He owes her nothing. He could stay behind while she carves a bloodied path before her, dismantling empires. The Senju have soldiers to spare. They could send someone else.

But it is always Madara.

He hates her, admires her, wants to _be_ her.

Wants to rip the skeleton from her flesh, to uncover the fire that he knows must rage beneath the trappings of her ribs.

Mito is poison.

Madara envies her. Envies her resolve. No hesitance in her steps. She would begin wars for those she loves.

Madara wonders what it would be like, to be loved that deeply.


	2. B-side

**[THEN]**

He is here again.

The boy, not Uchiha, not Senju, always scowling at her.

Madara reminds her of a feral, prideful stray, constantly dogging her steps, seeking attention, snapping and growling when she reaches out.

Amusing as he is intriguing.

She can feel his eyes on her, marking her trail to his Boss's office.

Mito enters, gently shutting the door. She does not worry about Madara eavesdropping. The office is soundproof.

She wastes no time with pleasantries. "I'm taking him to Brașov with me." It is a bold declaration, but she knows Madara would not go without his Boss's approval.

Tobirama is looking out the window. He stands, hands in his pockets, an air of contemplation about him. Silence stretches between them, long enough to make Mito uncomfortable.

Tobirama has always unsettled her. They are allies, _friends_ even, and yet in moments like these, Mito is aware that she has never truly known him.

"You know I will not let him come to harm," she says, placating. It's a dangerous promise to make, but it is not in her nature to make promises she doesn't believe she can keep.

Tobirama faces her then. Something dark and unreadable in his eyes. "You will return in three days."

Mito recognizes it for the command it is. She inclines her head in acknowledgment. It irks her, knowing that though she leads the Uzumaki, she would always owe loyalty to the Senju.

Tobirama says naught else, turning his back on her, a clear dismissal.

Mito resists the urge to slam the door on her way out.

In the hallway, Madara still lingers. He is leaning against the wall, cigarette between his fingers, ash all over the marble floor. He scowls when he sees her, but she does not miss the curiosity in his eyes.

She keeps walking. She is five feet away when she says, "Pack a bag, kid. There's an Uchiha cell in Romania to destroy."

She does not glance behind to see if he's following. She knows he would.

This is how it begins.

  


* * *

  


She knows what they say about him.

To the Uchiha, he is a traitor. To the Senju, a spy, a puppet, a bane, a blessing, depending on who you asked.

Madara is neither. He is a kid who chose love over duty.

This, Mito knows, watching the way he is with Hashirama. The way his eyes shine with something other than bloodlust. The way his face splits into a grin that's nothing like the one he wears in battle. The way he _is,_ unguarded.

How human he looks. How _exposed._ Mito could slip behind him, snap his neck, slit his throat, strangle him with piano wire.

She thinks she could hate him but most days, all she feels is sorry.

Sorry that he would always be caught in the middle. Sorry that he would never truly belong.

But she is not sorry about Hashirama.

  


* * *

  


The truth is, she finds Madara's devotion admirable.

Family is everything in the Mafia, but for Madara, heart and blood aren't the same thing.

He is an anomaly. Bold and reckless and stupid — all the parts of her she loves and misses, trammeled as they often are behind restraint and rationality.

She envies Madara his freedom. Admires that he risked everything — _lost_ everything — to stand by Hashirama's side.

What courage must run in the marrow of his bones. What _love._

She loves Hashirama with all that she is, as she loves — loved — her mother, her Family. She loves them all in equal measure.

Mito wonders what it would be like, to find that one thing — one _person_ — to love above all else.

  


* * *

  


She tells him she does not care what he thinks.

Watches him keenly. Waits for the storm.

It doesn't come.

Before her, he is tightly leashed anger. She can see what it does to him in the clench of his jaw, the tension in his limbs, the hate in his eyes.

He looks at her with so much revulsion, though she can't quite figure out what exactly he's repulsed by.

Her arrogance, perhaps? The way she sits, unruffled. She knows her calmness infuriates him.

Madara is too much fun to infuriate.

He is a pitiful, loathsome, marvelous thing, pining after a man he can never have.

A man she would not let _anyone_ have.

Madara turns, leaves without a word.

Mito's smile stretches wider. Bitterness is an unwelcome guest upon her tongue.

  


* * *

  


It's a strange thing, living with half a heart.

These days, her life is divided in moments of _dead_ and _alive._

Mito is most alive in battle. She travels the world, rooting out Uchiha cells, tearing them apart piece by piece. She does this against the counsel of her advisors. Each time, she brings Madara with her.

She does not understand why Tobirama lets him go. Does not quite know why she wants this.

Madara by her side, helping her destroy the family he was born into, the Family who took everything from her.

And it happens like this.

They are trapped in an alley, somewhere in Palermo. The enemies keep coming and Mito dives in, undaunted. Familiar rush of blood in her veins. Half a heart, beating frantically enough for both of them.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices Madara. Blood spatter upon his cheek. His grinning mouth. His wild, wild eyes.

His face, an expression that mirrors hers.

  


* * *

  


The Uchiha have a wraith of their own.

Mito realizes this, almost too late. But she _does_ notice. The man sneaking up behind Madara. Glint of piano wire in the pale lamplight.

Mito does not think. Her body moves, throwing her dagger swift and sharp, the way her mother taught her. It buries itself in the man's left eye. He falls, and Mito is upon him, shoving the dagger all the way through, cutting him off mid-scream.

She can feel Madara's eyes — as always — on her.

"Stop gawking, kid," she says, not sparing him a glance. "There are people to kill."

She charges back into the fray. Does not have to look to know he is right behind her.

  


* * *

  


She comes to Tobirama one day, a day like all the others, like none of them at all.

"It happens tonight," she says, and she doesn't have to elaborate to know that Tobirama _knows._

She has waited two years for this. Tonight, she will kill Uchiha Tajima. Tonight, she will avenge her mother.

The look Tobirama gives her makes her blood run cold. Something is different about him. Mito can feel it, in the way the air shifts. Something flashes in his eyes, dark and foreboding.

"Madara will remain here," he says.

"But — "

"You will do this without him," Tobirama says, "or you will not do it at all."

And in this moment, she hates him. Hates that she owes him, for her vengeance would not be possible without the power of the Senju.

She nods.

Finds Madara waiting in the hallway as always. She passes without a word.

  


* * *

  


**[NOW]**

She meets him in the hallway.

Catches him leaving Tobirama's office in the dead of night. It would not be unusual but for the way his clothes look — neat, smoothed out.

Madara is rarely conscientious about his appearance unless he has something to hide.

Their gazes lock and all at once, she _knows._

Knows it in the shock that passes his face, the way he tenses. How he tries to act like nothing is amiss. That scowl, stubborn, prideful, embarrassed — a hurried attempt at disguising that _just fucked_ expression upon his face.

Mito is surprised to realize how well she has learned him. The knowledge of it is mildly unsetlling.

She stands before him, blood on her suit, adrenaline still surging within her.

Blood of the man who was never really a father to this boy, this stray, this person who is the kind of brave she wishes she knew how to be. Rush of emotions through her. Surprise. Comprehension. Kindness, perhaps. She does not examine them too closely, almost afraid of what she might uncover.

She looks at Madara and finally understands that look she witnessed earlier in Tobirama's eyes. The look of someone who has found their person to love above all else.

A grin, breaking slowly across her face.

His, a mirror.

  


* * *

  


**[NOW & ONWARD]**

"Do you hate me?"

She asks him this, sitting on the porch steps, smoking his cigarette. She has not changed out of her bloodied suit.

He takes the cigarette from her, inhales, passes it back. His face is shadowed beneath the fall of his hair. "For what?"

"For destroying your Family."

He looks at her then. He is young, so young it almost makes her feel sorry for what he's had to endure.

_Almost._

They are Mafia children. Sin and suffering run in their blood. Such human things they are. Vulnerability beneath bravado and strength within their fragility.

Mito does not know why she asks. Why she cares if he hates her. She would not undo it. She would kill Tajima, destroy his empire again and again if she could. She's had her revenge and still, her heart is restive, her blood, unsated.

She does not have a name for what they are. They've never been enemies. But this isn't exactly friendship. It's something deeper. Something _more._

"My family," Madara says, "is right here."

  


* * *

  


Weariness overcomes her. She rests her head upon his shoulder. He does not push her away.

Smoke from a single cigarette, rising between them. Ash scattered like corpses at their feet. Together, they watch the dawn.


End file.
